After Romero Games announced that its canceled shooter project had been rescued last year, studio co-founder and industry veteran John Romero has revealed a few more details about the project. In an interview with IGN at Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show 2026, Romero spoke about the project first getting canceled before its eventual revival.
“It really sucked. [But] I don’t have bitterness because that’s not who I am, really. I always move forward. So, it’s like, that happened. Now we have to figure out where to go from here,” he said about the time. On the subject of the new project, he wasn’t keen on revealing too many specific details. He did, however, confirm that it was being developed in Unreal Engine 5.8, that it will be a shooter, and that many elements of the canceled project are being brought over.
“I can’t talk about the publisher, the release date, you know, anything that we’re doing, what it is, it’s up to them,” said Romero before confirming that “it’s a shooter, it uses Unreal Engine 5.8, and we’re bringing a lot of stuff from the [cancelled] game over.”
While he didn’t fully confirm whether the title would feature a fully open world, Romero still hinted at players having plenty of freedom while playing it, and that exploration would be a big part of the general gameplay loop.
“Exploration is really a big deal for me when I play a game. I don’t like to be told how to play [it], you know? The games I like the most are the ones that just let me go, ‘Okay, what is this? This place is crazy, or this place looks really interesting, and just like turn around and go that way, you know? Like, do whatever you want.”
“It’s like when you play Blue Prince. After a while you decide to turn around from that first room, and you’re like, ‘Oh my god! There’s an outside too?’”
Interestingly, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has also served as a major inspiration, with Romero drawing direct comparisons to Nintendo’s open-world title in terms of how easy it will be for players to get distracted with other activities.
“You want to go to that tower over there, but you’re going to run into all kinds of stuff in between here and there, and that might change everything you’re doing,” he explained. “You totally forget that you were on your way to the tower, right?”
“And so, that’s the kind of gameplay that I like, and that’s what [we’re] injecting into [the new game]. The feeling that I want is for people to feel like they’re just going to have an adventure and just have fun.”
Romero Games had confirmed that the project, after being canceled due to the unnamed publisher pulling out of the deal, had been rescued. In the process of this, Romero confirmed that it had “been basically completely redesigned”.
“We’re not starting at ground zero. We can take pieces out of and put into a brand new indie game. We have a lot of stuff we can put in the game. The design is completely different, but the team is very excited about the new design.”
